Wednesday, April 30, 2014

IBM was awarded a patent for a method of managing how resources are used and work is done within a cloud by distributing control throughout the interconnected systems.

IBM said this latest cloud computing invention, U.S. Patent #8645745: Distributed Job Scheduling In A Multi-Nodal Environment, was originally designed to help manage resources in high performance computing systems used for government and academic research. These systems consist of hundreds or thousands of computing resources that are connected to perform complex tasks where demands for system resources can rise and fall dynamically -- similar to the model for cloud computing. The job scheduling function is broken up into pieces and distributed throughout the system, with a job scheduler assigned to each node of a system or cloud. Each job scheduler can manage resources and prioritize requests within its own node. But if it determines that it needs more resources it can dynamically join with other nodes. One of the nodes becomes the primary node, controlling the shared resources within the node group.

"Try to imagine the tens of thousands of airplanes that fly across the United States each day being managed by a single air traffic controller, who must keep track of each one and determine what runways, gates, maintenance facilities, etc. are available at every airport across the country," said IBM inventor Eric Barsness. "The best way to complete that task efficiently and effectively is to break it up to thousands of air traffic controllers, each of which has a view of all resources available and can prioritize and direct traffic accordingly. That's effectively what this invention can do within a cloud computing environment."